Damascene moment

Damascene moment (plural Damascene moments)

1. A seminal moment, in reference to the conversion of Paul the Apostle on the road to Damascus.
   • 2015 April 11, Bridget Christie, “We’re a nation of armchair activists – what’s wrong with that?”, in The Guardian‎:

     I came to politics quite late in life. My Damascene moment was a man farting in the women’s studies section of Waterstones around three years ago.

   • 2016 May 10, Jennifer Szalai, “‘You May Also Like’ and ‘Pretentiousness: Why It Matters’”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     He [Tom Vanderbilt] recalls a Damascene moment as a teenager in the 1980s, when he “quickly became a fan of this strange cacophony” of “punk rock and other eclectic forms of music,” though the most enthusiasm he musters in its favor is to note that it “sounded little like anything I had heard before.”

   • 2016 October 28, John Sutherland, “He Loved Opium, Murder and Wordsworth”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     It was in his later teens that De Quincey discovered his God: Wordsworth. […] It would take another four years, however, in response to a frigidly cordial reply from the great man, for him to bring himself to travel to the Lake District and have his Damascene moment.

• Damascene conversion